Okay, you are right! My bad, Marco! Not for a “fact” but it would not at all surprise me.
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So, I had this weird dread about some of you guys last night. In the dream, some of you decided to meet up in a dream together. You all had scheduled a precise time to go to sleep visualizing a place to meet up (I think it was the Parthenon in ancient Greece). One of you had written down a message on a piece of paper and held it in your hand as you fell asleep. You all even went so far as to turn it into a “Zoom” event and fell asleep in front of your screens. You all have quite a beautiful brotherhood.
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Have you all ever tried that? I think it would be a good idea. Bump it up a level. Dream together, bros! You chant and meditate together online. Have you ever tried applying some of your newly developed psychic skills to synchronized or synergized dreaming? When I watch you all on the recorded Zoom -casts, you appear to have incredible harmony. Anybody up for such an experiment? In my dream, you all had the objective of passing messages among each other via synchronized dreaming. Then, you all would meet up in waking life to discuss and process the dreams, which led to incredible discoveries and revelation.
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This website reminds me of a mythical training ground for Platonic Guardians of the culture. Such ancient Guardians, I believe, were those who made the painful and courageous ascent from the cave of shadows. They educate each other on the utility of this new source of revelatory energy encountered from the light of the Sun, which gives them access to the Forms. In preparation to return to the cave as liberators.
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I will use the Cave Analogy as a metaphor for my approach to technology. It is possible to educate one’s brothers and sisters out of the cave. Using knowledge to manipulate the shadowy images on the wall with encouraging messages of freedom. Using media that will “turn their heads” away from the wall of the cave (I.e., the screen) and spark or reignite their curiosities about the real world. Encouraging them to pursue such curiosities and develop safe community spaces for expression. That is my approach as an educator.
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Although I have reports that mutual dreaming projects are happening, I would not like to participate in such a project. My pre planned direct experience with Mutual dreaming ended up in a disturbing experience I would not like to repeat. What I learned was that the ego, though necessary, should not try to be in the driver’s seat. I doubt that much good will come from mass lucid dreaming without ethical standards and a way of working with boundaries in respectful ways. I would not cancel out the possibility of shared meaning making in dreams, altered states, reading groups, study groups, happening spontaneously and with disciplined flow this is a great good.
I’m not sure, Katina, if you were parodying our efforts here or trying to change them in some way that you would prefer to go in? I am very open to your influence. I may have not gotten the affective attunement right.
To reveal one’s inner life in a public space requires great sincerity. It is not my book your holding it’s my heart.
It is easy to make a flippant remark and very hard to undo the damage. There is great care in treating other’s flights of fancy ( no matter how deluded you think they are) with respect.
This is my personal ideal which I dont always live up to. As someone who has been scorned and thrown out of the village many times I know how difficult it is to discern ego voices, demonic voices and visitations from higher intelligences. Unless there are enough people with enough skills the visionary impulse can cause us to crash a burn if it is not well grounded in a common sense. As a self declared semi- Aristotelian I imagine you get my drift. When we are harmonized it is due to being able to handle many mixed messages. It is not easy to produce a sense of trust on line and very easy to loose it.
I am sure, Katina, as an educator and a student of philosophy and religion you are not a stranger to these complex issues. We are in very wierd territory.
Co-sponsorship is one of the skills we are actively developing. This takes a lot of patience and willingness to be wrong-dead wrong. I am impressed by the vigilance of the core members commitment to this ideal and whatever is coherent in our group is probably produced by this preferred relational style. Our culture does not excel at this, yet, but those of us who are drawn to that ideal like hanging out together.
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Whoa. I think this thread broke.
And I have to say the comments about Catholics not being Christians hit me pretty hard. I was raised Roman Catholic and still consider myself as working out of that tradition, despite my profound disagreement with certain doctrines and my admittedly polytheistic disposition. This kind of talk is just silly. Every Christian until the Reformation was a catholic in the ecumenical sense. The idea that you could have religion without ritual, tradition and a clerical apparatus would have seemed unwise if not absurd to anyone during Christianity’s first millennium and a half. The subsequent fragmentation of the Protestant movement into a million splinters would seem to suggest that they had a point. But more power to you.
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No, no, no! I clarified the statement about Catholics and Christians. I said that Catholics ARE Christians but not vice versa.
I think logic would dictate phrasing it as follows: Some Christians are Catholic, some Christians are not. But that seems rather self-evident.
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I feel like I am getting my wrists slapped by the nuns at convent school. Geesh! Read more carefully, folks. As soon as the topic of “religion” is brought up, everyone gets their hackles up and grow fangs.
And I am not making a parody out of the psychic practices you all host and participate in on IC. I like it! I think that it is rather courageous for men, in particular, to start applying their rational faculties to their spiritual natures.
I always disagreed with Plato’s elevating reason above the spirited nature in his tripartite model of the human soul. Whilst the “appetitive” nature was rightly demoted to the basest aspect of the human soul. I think that reason should, in most cases, precede the appetites. But not the spirited nature. I believe that if we had elevated the nature of spirit above that of reason, (in the Westernized, Platonic theoretical framework), then we would be a lot further along as a species.
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Okay, it’s a deal. Shall we shake on it? 
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Beautifully put! I’ve given up on assimilating into villages. Not for me. I prefer to forfeit the comforts and security of village life, for that of the lone “wandering wizard”. I don’t take myself too seriously and I suggest that you don’t either.
I do know that I am drawn to the spirit of others that I have engaged on this platform. Not in a threatening or carnal way, but otherwise. Don’t ever imagine that you will find me to be a source of offense to what you are aiming to do. I love y’all too much. You all are like the brothers I’ve never had but wanted.
I just sense the sincerity and depth of genuine pain that you, JohnnyD54, (Yes, YOU!) have wielded into a source of healing for others. You are a True Believer (not a Christian connotation, Ok? Got it!) and I want to see people with your type of spirit succeed because when you triumph, others do as well. You are the type of person that can be entrusted with power. That is remarkably rare, indeed, it is! If you could just see yourself on past recorded Zoom-casts, JohnnyD54! You have this hunger in your eyes that is fed by the thoughts and ideas of others. It is unfortunate that you have to tame your passion (for the sake of whatever PC cause is floating about at the time) but I understand that you make such a sacrifice because of your authentic concern for the well-being of others.
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Well, I come and go in peace. But not without ruffling things up a bit, for goodness sake!
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Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha! Oh, boy! Not to make light of this experience, but I have to say - now that you mention it…that it is a rather vulnerable place to put oneself, isn’t it?
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And this goes for all of you! I can see things in you and about you…private things that are unutterable …via your images on the Zoom-casts. It is amazing how faces tell soooo much about us. I see sources of pain that are unresolved, but none of my business. It is beautiful, though. It is one of my gifts and I hate it because it always interferes with…Well, nevermind that. I just hope that we are becoming friends, that’s all.
(Douggins, still be on the lookout for the purple bonnet and the ladder, tonight. I will tread very carefully and lightly, leaving my ego under the pillow.) 
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Wow! Katina, you take my breath away. I take a deep and humble bow as your insights accumulate and pack a powerful punch. You have properly named and blessed me and I return the blessing many times over. You are up to something BIG! And you are also very funny!!! You crack me up. I look forward to the next conference call.
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I don’t believe in violence, JohnnyD54. I am much more myself in writing than in person. I should have been created as a “Form” instead of matter. I’m more “me” in writing than in the flesh. You will soon see how shy I become under the watchful eye of the webcam. I am just glad that I haven’t scared anyone away…yet (Ahem!). And when time permits, I enjoy hanging out here and exploring all the “Forms” you all present and experiment with. All this time, I mistakenly thought that the forms only existed in my mind. Yet, I suppose technology has this incidental benefit of creating an expressive domain for the “forms” to come out and play. Esp. if the ego stays at home. One of the reasons I come across with such striking impact is that I am not afraid of ideas. Even the ones I don’t quite understand (Ahem…Mr. G.!) I love them in fact. I’m in my element here at IC, it seems. I’ll try not to wear out the welcome.
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Whoa! we’ve birthed a whole new topic. I hope that I didn’t cause this with my big head and tap-happy keystrokes.
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